Narcissistic Personality Disorder - Recognizing the Problem

Recognizing the fact that you have been living with a partner who is
affected by NPD, is
surely the first step of dealing with the issue.

However, before someone might be classified as being narcissistic,
it is important to keep in mind that, like every psychological
disorder, narcissistic personality disorder too comes in various
degrees. Going to the extreme, we might argue that each of us has
somewhere a narcissist in her/himself. It even could be said that a
narcissistic tendency is important for survival. However, in the same
context it must be emphasized that, while a narcissistic tendency is
constructive, a fully elaborated or developed symptomatic of NPD is
nothing but destructive.

Psychologically there are several criteria which have been applied
to this personality disorder. These are:

The narcissist can not take perspective, hence situations are
blown out of proportion

The narcissist has little or no empathy. This means that (s)he
cannot identify with the feelings or thoughts of another person

The narcissist is preoccupied with her/his personal distress

The narcissist cannot accept authority and hence has little
concern for morals

The narcissist feels easily inferior and will try to be seen as
superior

The narcissist is narcissistic hypersensitive, and hence cannot
accept any form of critique

The narcissist is an exhibitionist and needs sexual admiration

The narcissist is exploitative, vain and not self-sufficient

So the question is whether the man or the woman you are living with
are so strongly affected by this disorder that you will have to
seriously confront the issue or whether the condition is mild and maybe
after some adaptations it is possible to agree on a harmonious life
together. However, this page will focus on the first scenario where the
disorder poses a serious threat to the relationship as well as to your
existence.

There is much one can read about the symptoms of NPD and yet exactly
this can be more than confusing, and you might find yourself going
through a checklist of symptoms in order to arrive at some conclusion.
However, the list above should give you some idea. Still, there is
another element which is just as important and this quite possibly the
most important item for you to look at:

Look at yourself and ask yourself how you feel and whether you are the
person you once were
and knew. If you live with a narcissist, you will develop a cluster of
negative feelings centered around the emotion of fear and an image of
inadequacy. This self image of being inadequate then will be due to a
change in self perception. This is, it is a cognitive concept that you
are not familiar with and which is in contrast to how you used to see
yourself. Clearly, such a negative self image will have serious effects
on the way you feel and behave. The dominant feeling is, as alluded to,
fear. Fear of doing things wrong and fear of being punished. And thus,
the way you behave too will become modified whereby you will watch your
every move and where your actions become unnatural to yourself.

The issue is - in a sense - more complicated. Because, all of us have
negative feelings and concepts about ourselves even if we never encountered
a narcissist. So in this sense, what the narcissist does is to build on the
already existing negative self images and enlarge them to a maximum. The
situation is even worse because we are aware of short comings in ourselves.
This is where the narcissist is most successful. The narcissist will endeavour
to increase these short comings. I may give a personal example: once, I gave
up smoking, the narcissist exercised so much pressure on me until I started again
(I still smoke sometimes). The narcissist would really like to see you in the gutter.

However, if you see that you have substantially changed for the worse
you can be sure that you are living with a narcissist, and a check list is not
necessary any longer.

Still, there is a healing aspect to sharing what actions you
suffered and what injustice and cruelty you have been exposed to, and
hence sharing experiences and finding reassurance through others can be
very important. This is the more the case as, while you are still
living with the narcissist or are still in contact with the narcissist,
the negative self image gets constantly reinforced.

If you feel that the self check and the characteristics of the
narcissist as given above are not sufficient you might want to
check your relationship for symptoms of the following kind as given by
the check list below. Still, while
you are comparing your own experiences with the check list provided
here,
it is important to remember that maybe only some of these symptoms
apply to you or that symptoms which apply to you are not listed. The
final criterion will always remain the way you feel about yourself and
your self image. Here now a list of possible symptoms a narcissist
might display: